Australia-based Filipino artist and Sydney Morning Herald editorial cartoonist Eduardo ‘Edd’ Aragon, 59, will be opening Tres Kantos – three exhibits in three genres in three different venues - come April 2008 in Manila.

Digitalla Prima (digital alla prima, Italian for "at once") has twenty digitally-manipulated photographs and scanned images using paint programs. Aragon first experimented with computer drawings in the late 80's and continued as computer paint programs evolved from IBM Studio 1™ to the current Adobe Photoshop™.

"Pixels as paint! I'm now addicted to this wonderful, electronic canvas,” Edd writes. “I avoid gimmicky plugged-in effects. A simple paint program like Photoshop offers simple yet powerful tools; much like an ordinary lead pencil effectively used to sketch a pretty portrait in the analog world."

Digitalla Prima opens at 3 pm on Sunday, April 6 at The Oarhouse, 1803 A. Mabini St, Malate, Manila tel.(+632 4508301).

Mulat

Thirty ultra-violet light-reactive (invisible) paintings on canvas of legendary Filipino and western rock & blues musicians, nudes and allegorical images exhibit Edd Aragon’s ongoing romance with the mineral called “aragonite.”

“Truth is hard to perceive in ordinary day-to-day life and light. Beneath the prismatic chaos reside the ultra-violet rays of rapture for things unseen. It's almost like exploring the dark side of the moon,” says Edd.

Central to this exhibit is a life-size portrait of Tandang Sora aka Melchora Aquino, Mother of the Katipunan, who was born in Banilad a.k.a. Banlat, which is where the exhibit will be launched.

Edd, who also plays music, portrays Filipino and international rock & roll and blues musicians like B.B. King as subjects for his UV canvases first exhibited in a Sydney restaurant in 2006. This work has evolved over eight years of continuous experimentation with UV pigments and the acrylic medium.

Mulat opens at 5 pm on Saturday, April 12 at Banyuhay ni Heber Arts & Music Center - 170 Banlat Rd, Tandang Sora, Quezon City, tel (+632) 453 0516

Op-Edd!

A collection of Aragon's opinion editorial (op-ed) cartoons and caricatures published in The Sydney Morning Herald, including prints of his political cartoons currently on exhibit at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

"Newspaper culture is universal; artists and journalists working together but each in his own world and constantly aware of events and deadlines. My experience as newspaper cartoonist in Manila brought me the confidence and tenacity to work in Australian newspapers since 1980.

“I've always injected the element of the human form in my editorial drawings; and enjoy using manual airbrush to draw, scanned and brought to a paint program and re-birthed."

Opp-Edd opens at 6 pm on Saturday, April 19 at Maestro, Masterpiece Art Depot, 2nd flr. rm 207, Seneca Bldg, 1152 E. Rodriguez Ave, Quezon City, tel (+632) 396 5488.

Edd Aragon was awarded Artist of the Year in four different illustrative genres in Australia. He gives airbrush lessons, an art workshop and seminars in schools, as well as does life-drawing sessions around Sydney. His more than 30 years in the Australian newspaper industry have seen his style developed from quill pens to current computer paint programs.

Here’s a review of Edd Aragon's UV art by art critic and historian Alfredo Roces:

Philippine-based friends in the arts are helping him see Tres Kantos through long distance.